Monday, June 4, 2012

Green Lantern Corps #9

Can someone explain why Kyle Rayner isn’t listed with the GL’s who’ve lost their rings recently? I don’t read New Guardians, but I thought he was booted out of the corps too? After the events of this issue, I think that leaves Guy Gardner as the only “official” Earth man serving in the GL Corps. Who would have thought?

Peter Tomasi has been writing GL Corps for awhile now, and it shows. I’m really pleased that the corps has enough background members that I feel like I recognize a lot of the aliens showing up in crowd shots. Heck, I barely know who Vandor is, but I love seeing him jump to John Stewart’s defense. If he’s not careful, he’s going to become perfect to get killed in an upcoming story!

And boy, do I love the Alpha Lanterns. The GL Corps always walks that fine line of fascism, and the Alpha’s stroll right over it. They’re robotic jerks who seem to take a tad too much pleasure in functioning as GL internal affairs. Seeing how the rest of the corps responds to them is great too. The GLs may disagree on Stewart’s actions, but they seem pretty united in disliking the Alphas.

Fernando Pasarin is not an artist who takes shortcuts. There are a LOT of crowd scenes in this issue, and Pasarin always takes the time to fill in the panels with GLs. And recognizable GLs at that! I want to know more about some of these folks. A mummy Lantern? Tell me more! Brik, Hannu, and the other named Lanterns always stick out, but the level of detail here is tremendous.